Auction Sniping Services

[SwiftDeath]

So it's come to my understanding that even though this site is home to some of the greatest ebay sniffer dogs I have ever had the pleasure and misfortune to meet, people still don't use a sniping service

This is only my opinion and not endorsed by CE.org in anyway

As with most things in life, you mileage may vary

So first off:

Potential Benefits to sniping an auction

1. Defense against shill bidding - basically if you bid early, some sellers may try to artificially bid up the auction with fake ebay accounts, setting a snipe makes this somewhat less appealing to sellers in my opinion

2. Time Management - Set a snipe and forget it. Work the system not the other way around. If an auction is ending in australia sunday morning, I ain't staying up for it. I like my sleep

3. Helps to set price limit - I hinted at this in number 1 but basically to set a snipe bid you have to choose your maximum bid from the get go and this alleviates bidding wars. Sure you may lose but it makes you honestly assess how much X and Y are worth to you. Not I was outbid thus I must bid again

Potential Downsides to sniping services

1. Service is using your ebay id/password to bid - security issue for some maybe, have never had a problem across the 4 or so that I've tried. Most are fairly professional

2. Machines are not infallible - servers fail, data gets lost/corrupted but nowadays that is quite rare, never had a single mistake from the 300 - 400 snipe bids I've placed in the last 6 months or so

So months back I went searching for a sniping service due to a mix of shill bidding by sellers and late ending european auctions

I tried maybe 3 services before I found Gixen

www.gixen.com

Benefits of Gixen compared to other sniping services:

1. FREE version that is rather feature-rich- you can snipe to your hearts content, no limits, no fees etc. however there are some advertisements, been using it 6 months or more and don't notice them anymore to be honest

2. 6 USD a year for Premium Version - removes ads, adds redundancy to the sniping, allows control of the timing of the snipe, more complicated group bidding I think

3. Bids in the currency of the auction -fairly standard practice but still useful to know and plan for

Negatives of Gixen compared to other sniping services

1. 3rd Party Ads - The free version has ad bars on the site, never really bothered me

2. Gixen Promotion Screen - For the free version, every time you login you have to click past a buy gixen premium/ help promote gixen page. Again don't notice it anymore

So yeah I highly recommend trying it out for an auction or two personally as it really just works

Basics of how Gixen Functions:

You log in to Gixen using your ebay id/password and use the ebay item number to set up a snipe bid

On the free accounts Gixen snipes anywhere from 4 to 9 seconds before the end of the auction and again I have never had any problems with it

I will try to add my experiences with the other 2 - 3 services I tried before Gixen but will have to refresh my memory as it's been a while

If anyone has experience with Gixen or another sniping service, please feel free to share it and I will try to add it to OP if appropriate